This doctrine, however, is unsound. It is an interpretation of the utility requirement that is incongruent with both the words and the scheme of the Patent Act.

[37] The Promise Doctrine is excessively onerous in two ways: (1) it determines the standard of utility that is required of a patent by reference to the promises expressed in the patent; and (2) where there are multiple expressed promises of utility, it requires that all be fulfilled for a patent to be valid.

ultimately, every invention pertains to a single subject-matter, and any single use of that subject-matter that is demonstrated or soundly predicted by the filing date is sufficient to make an invention useful for the purposes of [Section 2].

This judicial decision has implications well beyond the immediate parties in the case. By relaxing the criteria for meeting the utility requirement, more inventions should be patentable. Applicants for biopharmaceutical patents, in which demonstrating details of efficacy tends to be more challenging than in other arts, may particularly benefit from the demise of promise doctrine.

The effects of the AstraZeneca Canada v. Apotex may be especially inflammatory to the parties involved in the Eli Lilly and Company v. Canada trade dispute, which largely focused on whether or not promise of the patent doctrine was good Canadian law. Now that the doctrine has gone up in smoke, it make spark a new fire under Eli Lilly and other patent applicants previously burned by what they view as broken promises.